Airplane crash-lands into Hudson River; all aboard reported safe - CNN.com Airplane crash-lands into Hudson River; all aboard reported safe Story Highlights NEW: Flight's pilot, C.B. Sullenberger, emerges as hero of "miracle on the Hudson" All 155 passengers and crew aboard US Airways Flight 1549 alive, FAA says President says he is inspired by skill, heroism of flight crew, rescue teams Flight was headed from New York to Charlotte, North Carolina TIMELINE NEW YORK (CNN) -- A US Airways plane with 155 people on board ditched into a chilly Hudson River on Thursday, apparently after striking at least one bird upon takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport, according to officials and passengers. iReporter Julie Pukelis used a camera and a telescope to get this view of the scene in the river. more photos » Everyone on board was accounted for and alive, officials said. About 15 people were being treated at hospitals and others were being evaluated at triage centers. Flight 1549, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, was airborne less than three minutes, according to FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown.

The pilot radioed to air traffic controllers that he had experienced a bird strike and declared an emergency, a New Jersey State Police source said. "I think a lot of people started praying and just collecting themselves," said passenger Fred Berretta. "It was quite stunning." He said he was expecting the plane to flip over and break apart, but it did not. "It was a great landing," Berretta said. Air traffic controllers at LaGuardia saw the plane clear the George Washington Bridge by less than 900 feet before gliding into the water about 3:31 p.m., an aviation source told CNN. iReport.com: Are you there? Send images Don't Miss Statement from US Airways Web site Witness Ben Vonklemperer said he watched the plane from the 25th floor of an office building. "If someone's going to land a plane in the water, this seemed the best possible way to do it," Vonklemperer said. "The way they hit it was very gradual. A very slow contact with the water." As the situation began to settle Thursday evening, the flight's pilot, Chesley B.

"Sully" Sullenberger, emerged as a hero, with praise being heaped on him by passengers, officials and aviation experts. "I don't think there's enough praise to go around for someone who does something like this. This is something you really can't prepare for," said former Delta pilot Denny Walsh. "You really don't practice water landings in commercial airplanes. Just the sheer expertise he demonstrated is amazing." US Airways CEO Doug Parker said it would be premature to speculate about the cause of the accident until the National Transportation Safety Board , which is sending a team to the site, completed an investigation. A source familiar with the situation, however, told CNN the pilot reported a double bird strike, but it was unclear whether that meant birds in both engines or two birds in one engine. The pilot initially said he needed to go back, and air traffic controllers started to give him clearance to do so, but the pilot said he wanted to head to Teterboro, New Jersey, because it was closer. That was the last transmission from the pilot, the source said. Passenger Alberto Panero said that within a few minutes after takeoff, he heard a loud bang and smelled smoke.

Watch passenger say he heard a loud bang » "That's when we knew we were going down and into the water. We just hit, and somehow the plane stayed afloat and we were able to get on the raft. It's just incredible right now that everybody's still alive." Passenger Jeff Kolodjay of Norwalk, Connecticut, said he was sitting in seat 22A, near one of the engines. "The captain came on and said, 'Look, we're going down. Brace for impact.' Everyone looked at each other and we said our prayers. I said about five Hail Marys," said Kolodjay, who was headed to Charlotte to play golf. "The plane started filling with water pretty quick," he said. "It was scary. There was a lady with her baby on my left-hand shoulder, and she was crawling over the seats." Watch footage of plane in water » Police, fire and Coast Guard boats, along with commercial ferries, were quickly on the scene as passengers lined up on slightly submerged safety chutes. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said later Thursday that the plane was tied to a pier at Battery Park City in lower Manhattan. As night fell, Coast Guard and FDNY boats remained at the scene.

President Bush commended those involved in the rescue. "Laura and I are inspired by the skill and heroism of the flight crew as well as the dedication and selflessness of the emergency responders and volunteers who rescued passengers from the icy waters of the Hudson," he said. Bloomberg also commended the pilot for not leaving the plane until he had checked to make sure everyone had been been evacuated. "It would appear that the pilot did a masterful job of landing the plane in the river and then making sure that everybody got out," Bloomberg said. "I had a long conversation with the pilot," Bloomberg said. "He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and assures us there were not." "There is a heroic pilot," said Gov. David Paterson. "We have had a miracle on 34th Street, I believe we now have a miracle on the Hudson." The temperature in New York was 20 degrees about the time of the crash off Manhattan's west side. See map of crash site » Dr. Gabriel Wilson, associated medical director of the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital, said 55 survivors were checked out and cleared to leave from the scene.

Those being treated at hospitals included a husband and wife with hypothermia at Roosevelt Hospital, as well as a flight attendant with a leg fracture, hospital spokeswoman Michelle Stiles said. Since 1975, five large jetliners have had major accidents in which bird strikes played a role, according to the Web site of Bird Strike Committee USA, a volunteer group dedicated to reducing the frequency and severity of the strikes. More than 56,000 bird strikes were reported to the FAA from 1998 to 2004, according to the group's Web site. People who believe they may have had relatives on the flight may call US Airways at 1-800-679-8215 within the United States, the airline said. US Airways plane crash lands on Hudson river in New York | US news | The Guardian Close This article is 8 years old The pilot of a US Airways jet managed to avoid disaster and save the lives of all 155 people on board his stricken plane when he ditched into the icy waters of the Hudson river moments after taking off from New York's LaGuardia airport.

The extraordinary escape was immediately dubbed the miracle on the Hudson, and hailed as a testimony to the ability of New York to cope with disaster in the wake of 9/11. Flight 1549 was carrying 148 ­passengers, including a baby, five crew and two pilots, and all of them escaped. The captain, named last night as ­Chesley Sullenberger, has 29 years' experience with commercial airlines and is a former US airforce fighter pilot. With both his twin engines in trouble, one apparently on fire, and with the ­nearest airport out of range, he calmly brought the plane to land on the river on the west side of Manhattan. Sullenberger then helped passengers escape to rescue boats, and twice walked the length of the passenger cabin inside the sinking jet to check that everyone had got out safely, before ­escaping himself. "We have had a Miracle on 34th Street. Now we have a miracle on the Hudson," the governor of New York, David ­Patterson said. The Airbus 320 took off from LaGuardia bound for Charlotte in North Carolina at 3.26pm.

A mere 30 to 45 seconds after take-off there was a bang and the aircraft shook, believed to have been caused by it striking a flock of geese. The pilot reported to air traffic control that he was experiencing engine ­problems and requested to return to ground. The nearest identified airport was in New ­Jersey, but when it became clear he could not make it, the pilot prepared for a crash landing on the Hudson. "Brace yourself for impact," he told the passengers. Seconds later the plane struck the ­Hudson, on a line with 48th Street in midtown Manhattan, turning a stretch of waterway normally populated by tourists enjoying a waterside view of the skyscrapers into an astonishing fight for survival. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a splash and the plane coming to an immediate stop; it looked so controlled that some witnesses mistook it for the landing of a seaplane. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And splash, it hit the water," said one witness, Barbara Sambriski. Jeff Kolodjay, one of the passengers, said that after ­take-off they had heard a bang and the plane filled with smoke from the left engine. "It was pretty scary, man.

We got out by the luck of God. I take my hat off to the pilot – it was incredible we all made it off alive." Another passenger, Alberto Panero, said: "I want to say thank you to that pilot. It was as good a landing as you can make in a river." He said that passengers had begun ­praying as it came in low over the river, but all had remained calm. The survival of all on board appears to have been thanks to a combination of the plane remaining intact on impact and almost immediate assistance from at least seven water taxis and tugs which swarmed around the jet. Doors were opened quickly at the front of the aircraft and over the wings, and ­passengers either stepped straight into the boats or stood in line on rafts, or on top of the wings which acted as ­buoyancy and kept the plane afloat. By the time all had been taken on to the rescue boats, the plane had water up to its windows and was floating rapidly ­southwards in the outgoing tide. Several passengers were taken to hospitals in New York and New Jersey, but their injuries were reported to be no more serious than mild hypothermia, shock, cuts and bruises.

"Normally this isn't the way people arrive in New York," said the city's mayor Michael Bloomberg. "But as long as ­everyone got off safely that's secondary." A team of 20 investigators from the National Transportation and Safety Board has been dispatched to root out the causes of the plane failure. Witnesses suggested that the engine trouble was caused by the plane flying into a flock of geese – a perennial threat at New York airports as a result of the city lying on a well-used migratory path for birds. One puzzle, though, is why both engines cut out. The left engine appeared to have caught fire, but pilots are usually able to bring a plane into an emergency landing with just one engine working. An air incident investigator, David Gleave, told the BBC that the incident was "quite remarkable, but not unique". He said if both engines of the plane had failed, the aircraft would become like a "glider". All Safe as US Airways Plane Crashes Into Hudson River in New York - The New York Times The New York Times N.Y.

/ Region |Pilot Is Hailed After Jetliner’s Icy Plunge Search Continue reading the main story Photo The partly submerged Airbus A320 floated along a pier in Battery Park City on Thursday night. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times A US Airways jetliner with 155 people aboard lost power in both engines, possibly from striking birds , after taking off from La Guardia Airport on Thursday afternoon. The pilot ditched in the icy Hudson River and all on board were rescued by a flotilla of converging ferries and emergency boats, the authorities said. What might have been a catastrophe in New York — one that evoked the feel if not the scale of the Sept. 11 attack — was averted by a pilot’s quick thinking and deft maneuvers, and by the nearness of rescue boats, a combination that witnesses and officials called miraculous. As stunned witnesses watched from high-rise buildings on both banks, the Airbus A320, which had risen to 3,200 feet over the Bronx and banked left, came downriver, its fuselage lower than many apartment terraces and windows, in a carefully executed touchdown shortly after 3:30 p.m.

that sent up huge plumes of water at midstream, between West 48th Street in Manhattan and Weehawken, N.J. On board, the pilot, Chesley B. Sullenberger III, 57, unable to get back to La Guardia, had made a command decision to avoid densely populated areas and try for the Hudson, and had warned the 150 passengers to brace for a hard landing. Most had their heads down as the jetliner slammed into the water, nose slightly up, just three minutes after takeoff on what was to be a flight to Charlotte, N.C. Continue reading the main story Many on board and watching from the shores were shocked that the aircraft did not sink immediately. Instead, it floated, twisting and drifting south in strong currents, as three New York Waterway commuter ferries moved in. Moments later, terrified passengers began swarming out the emergency exits into brutally cold air and onto the submerged wings of the bobbing jetliner, which began taking in water. Advertisement Continue reading the main story As the first ferry nudged up alongside, witnesses said, some passengers were able to leap onto the decks. Others were helped aboard by ferry crews.

Soon, a small armada of police boats, fireboats, tugboats and Coast Guard craft converged on the scene, and some of them snubbed up to keep the jetliner afloat. Helicopters brought wet-suited police divers, who dropped into the water to help with the rescues. Over the next hour, as a captivated city watched continuous television reports and the Hudson turned from gold to silver in the gathering winter twilight, all of the passengers, including at least one baby, and both pilots and all three flight attendants, were transferred to the rescue boats — a feat that unfolded as the white-and-blue jetliner continued to drift south. When all were out, the pilot walked up and down the aisle twice to make sure the plane was empty, officials said. Brought ashore on both sides of the river, the survivors were taken to hospitals in Manhattan and New Jersey, mostly for treatment of exposure to the brutal cold: 18 degrees in the air, about 35 degrees in the water that many had stood in on the wings up to their waists. Photo Still, most of them walked ashore, some grim with fright and shivering with cold, wrapped in borrowed coats.

But others were smiling, and a few were ready to give interviews to mobs of reporters and television cameras. Some described their survival as a miracle, a sentiment repeated later by city and state officials; others gave harrowing accounts of an ordeal whose outcome few might have imagined in such a crisis. Even the aircraft was saved for examination by investigators — towed down the Hudson and tied up at Battery Park City. In the glare of floodlights, the top of its fuselage, part of a wing and the blue-and-red tail fin jutted out of the water, but its US Airways logo and many of its windows were submerged. “We’ve had a miracle on 34th Street,” Gov. David A. Paterson said at a late-afternoon news conference in Manhattan. “I believe now we’ve had a miracle on the Hudson. This pilot, somehow, without any engines, was somehow able to land this plane, and perhaps without any injuries to the passengers. This is a potential tragedy that may have become one of the most magnificent days in the history of New York City agencies.” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that there had been few injuries and that the pilot had done “a masterful job.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story W.

Douglas Parker, chairman and chief executive of US Airways, and officials of the Federal Aviation Administration said that Flight 1549 had taken off from La Guardia at 3:26 p.m., bound for Charlotte. It headed north, across the East River and over the Bronx on a route that would involve a sweeping left turn to head south. But both engines lost power about a minute into the flight. The National Transportation Safety Board and state and local agencies are to investigate the cause of the crash, which could take months, but early indications were that the plane’s engines had shut down after having ingested a flock of birds — variously described as geese or gulls. It was not clear where the birds were encountered. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy The pilot radioed air traffic controllers on Long Island that his plane had sustained a “double bird strike.” Without power, returning to the airport was out of the question, aviation experts said.

He saw a small airport in the distance, apparently at Teterboro, N.J., but decided to head down the Hudson and make a water landing, a rare event that is mentioned in the safety instructions given by flight crews to all passengers on every flight. Aviation experts said such a maneuver is tricky. An angle of descent that is too steep could break off the wings and send the aircraft to the bottom. Witnesses in high-rise buildings on both sides of the river described a gradual descent that appeared to be carefully controlled, almost as if the choppy surface of the Hudson were a paved tarmac. Susan Obel, a retiree who lives on West 70th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in a 20th-floor apartment, saw the plane flying amazingly low. “When you see a plane somewhere that it isn’t supposed to be, you get that eerie feeling,” she said.

“I didn’t think it was a terrorist, but I did worry.” On the plane, passengers heard the pilot say on the intercom, “Brace for impact.” One passenger, Elizabeth McHugh, 64, of Charlotte, seated on the aisle near the rear, said flight attendants shouted more instructions: feet flat on the floor, heads down, cover your heads. “I prayed and prayed and prayed,” she said. “Believe me, I prayed.” Photo Capt. C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who made an emergency landing in the Hudson River. Fulmer Duckworth, 41, who works in computer graphics for Bank of America — coincidentally, more than 20 of the passengers work for the bank, which is based in Charlotte — was in a meeting on the 29th floor of a building at 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas when he saw the plane hit the water. “It made this huge, gigantic splash, and I actually thought it was a boat crash at first,” he said.

“It didn’t occur to me that it was a plane in the water.” Neil Lasher, 62, a consultant for Sony Music Publishing who lives in a 27th-floor apartment near the shore in Guttenberg, N.J., watched the plane go down. Advertisement “As soon as the plane hit the water,” he said, “I could see the New York Waterway ferries from New York York and the Jersey side, within a minute, heading toward the airplane.” The aircraft began to spin counterclockwise in the water and to drift south with the current. “As soon as we hit, we all jolted frontward and sideways, and then the water started coming in around my feet,” Ms. McHugh said. She got up and was pushed along the aisle and out an exit, then slid down an inflated slide into a life raft . One of the passengers who scrambled out onto the wing was Jeff Kolodjay, 31, who had been in Seat 22A in the rear. He said that after the emergency doors were opened, the plane began to take on water. In what he described as “organized chaos,” the passengers, all wearing life vests, “just walked through the water” toward the exits.

“We were just looking to be calm, and walking a straight line,” he said. Dozens of survivors were taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. Jim Mandler, a spokesman at Roosevelt, said 10 patients, ranging from their early 30s to a woman about 85, had been treated, mainly for hypothermia. A flight attendant had suffered a lacerated leg. At the Weehawken ferry terminal, passengers shivered under blankets. A woman on a stretcher was carried from the terminal to an ambulance, a dazed look on her face. F.A.A. records showed that the aircraft involved in the crash had made at least two other emergency landings in this decade. On Feb. 2, 2002, pilots spotted flames in the left engine, and on June 23, 2003, indicators warned about problems with a landing gear. A later inspection showed it was a false warning. Tom Fox, president of New York Water Taxi, which sent boats to the scene in the Hudson but did not participate in the rescues, said the setting was, in a sense, ideal for a crash landing on water.

“It couldn’t have gone down in a better location because there are so many water-borne assets there,” he said. “The pilot must have been both talented and charmed.” Correction: January 20, 2009 Because of an editing error, an article on Friday about the crash-landing of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River misstated, in some editions, the timing of the most recent commercial jet crash in the United States. It took place last month in Denver, not 30 months ago in Lexington, Ky. Reporting was contributed by Michael Barbaro, Ken Belson, Viv Bernstein, Ralph Blumenthal, Cara Buckley, Russ Buettner, Glenn Collins, Jim Dwyer, Kareem Fahim, Kevin Flynn, Anemona Hartocollis, Christine Hauser, Javier C. Hernandez, C. J. Hughes, Tina Kelley, Corey Kilgannon, Patrick LaForge, Andrew W. Lehren, Patrick McGeehan, Jo Craven McGinty, Mick Meenan, Christine Negroni, Kenny Porpora, William K.

Rashbaum, Ray Rivera, Liz Robbins, Marc Santora, Nate Schweber, Kirk Semple, Joel Stonington, A. E. Velez, Mathew R. Warren and Margot Williams. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: All 155 Aboard Safe as Crippled Jet Crash-Lands in Hudson. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe 'Miracle on the Hudson': All safe in jet crash - US news - Life | NBC News + - NEW YORK — With both engines out, a cool-headed pilot maneuvered his crowded jetliner over New York City and ditched it in the frigid Hudson River on Thursday, and all 155 on board were pulled to safety as the plane slowly sank. It was, the governor said, "a miracle on the Hudson." One victim suffered two broken legs, a paramedic said, but there were no other reports of serious injuries.

The plane, a US Airways Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., struck a flock of birds during takeoff minutes earlier at LaGuardia Airport and was submerged up to its windows in the river by the time rescuers arrived in Coast Guard vessels and ferries. Some passengers waded in water up to their knees, standing on the wing of the plane and waiting for help. "He was phenomenal," passenger Joe Hart said. "He landed it — I tell you what — the impact wasn't a whole lot more than a rear-end (collision). It threw you into the seat ahead of you. "Both engines cut out and he actually floated it into the river," he added. In a city still wounded from the aerial attack on the World Trade Center, authorities were quick to assure the public that terrorism wasn't involved. Police divers had to rescue some of the passengers from underwater, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Among those on board was one infant who appeared to be fine, the mayor said. Helen Rodriguez, a paramedic who was among the first to arrive at the scene, said she saw one woman with two broken legs. Fire officials said others were evaluated for hypothermia, bruises and other minor injuries.

Advertise "We had a miracle on 34th Street. I believe now we have had a miracle on the Hudson," Gov. David Paterson said. The crash took place on a 20-degree day, one of the coldest of the season in New York. The water temperature was 36 degrees, Coast Guard Lt. Commander Moore said. He estimates that hypothermia can hit within five to eight minutes at that temperature. 'Brace for impact' "The captain said, 'Brace for impact because we're going down,'" passenger Jeff Kolodjay said. He said passengers put their heads in their laps and started praying. He said the plane hit the water pretty hard, but he was fine. The pilot was identified as Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger of Danville, Calif. "It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," Kolodjay said. "He is the consummate pilot," his wife, Lorrie Sullenberger, told the New York Post. Sullenberger is an U.S. Air Force Academy grad who flew F-4 fighter planes while in the Air Force, she said.

"He is about performing that airplane to the exact precision to which it is made." MSNBC TV Flight 1549 pilot "Sully" Sullenberger. Sullenberger is an airline safety expert who has consulted with NASA and others, according to his resume posted on the Internet. He has 40 years of experience, 29 with US Airways, and hold masters' degrees in public administration and industrial psychology. "It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing," Kolodjay said. Another passenger, Fred Berretta, who was on his way home to Charlotte from a business trip, told CNN doors were opened on both sides of the plane "as soon as we hit the water." Witnesses said the plane's pilot appeared to guide the plane down. Bob Read, a television producer who saw the crash from his office window, said it appeared to be a "controlled descent." Paramedics treated at least 78 patients, fire officials said. Coast Guard boats rescued 35 people who were immersed in the frigid water and ferried them to shore. Some of the rescued were shivering and wrapped in white blankets, their feet and legs soaked.

One commuter ferry, the Thomas Jefferson of the company NY Waterway, arrived within minutes of the crash, and some of its own riders grabbed life vests and lines of rope and tossed them to plane passengers in the water. Advertise Panicked people "They were cheering when we pulled up," ferry captain Vincent Lombardi. "We had to pull an elderly woman out of a raft in a sling. She was crying. ... People were panicking. They said, 'hurry up, hurry up.'" Two police scuba divers said they pulled another woman from a lifeboat "frightened out of her mind" and lethargic from hypothermia. Another woman fell off a rescue raft, and the divers said they swam over and put her on a Coast Guard boat. US Airways Flight 1549 took off at 3:26 p.m. It was less than a minute later when the pilot reported a "double bird strike" and said he needed to return to LaGuardia, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said the controller told the pilot to divert to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J. Eric Thayer / Reuters Police divers helped in the rescue.

It was not clear why the pilot did not land at Teterboro. Church said there was no mayday call from the plane's transponder. The plane splashed into the water off roughly 48th Street in midtown Manhattan — one of the busiest and most closely watched stretches of the river. US Airways CEO Doug Parker confirmed that 150 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots were on board the jetliner. Bank of America and Wells Fargo said they had employees on the plane. Charlotte is a major banking center. The plane remained afloat but sinking slowly as it drifted downriver. Gradually, the fuselage went under until about half of the tail fin and rudder was above water. Bloomberg said the aircraft finally wound up near Battery Park, at the lower tip of Manhattan and about four miles from where the pilot ditched it. The Federal Aviation Administration says there were about 65,000 bird strikes to civil aircraft in the United States from 1990 to 2005, or about one for every 10,000 flights. "They literally just choke out the engine and it quits," said Joe Mazzone, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot.

He said air traffic control towers routinely alert pilots if there are birds in the area. “The plane flew through a flock of birds and both engines were damaged. That’s all we know right now,” said Dave Steyer, a technician with the wildlife research office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which helps the FAA study what it calls bird strikes. Video: Anatomy of a crash Worldwide since 1960, crashes of more than 25 large aircraft were caused by bird strikes, according to a published study by Richard Dolbeer, a retired ornithologist with the Department of Agriculture at the Wildlife Services in Sandusky, Ohio. In 23 of these incidents, the strike occurred below 400 feet. In the U.S., the FAA tracked more than 38,000 bird strikes from 1990 to 2004, according to a study by Dolbeer. He used data from the FAA's National Wildlife Strike Database for Civil Aviation. He concluded that management of birds should focus on the airport environment.

The Hudson crash took place almost exactly 27 years after an Air Florida plane bound for Tampa crashed into the Potomac River just after takeoff from Washington National Airport, killing 78 people. Five people on that flight survived. On Dec. 20, a Continental Airlines plane veered off a runway and slid into a snowy field at the Denver airport, injuring 38 people. That was the first major crash of a commercial airliner in the United States since Aug. 27, 2006, when 49 people were killed after a Comair jetliner mistakenly took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky. © 2013 msnbc.com Plane Crash Hudson River: US Airways plane crash-lands in New York's Hudson River - LA Times All on US Airways plane are safe -- within 5 minutes of crash landing About the aircraft Geraldine Baum and Matea Gold After a stricken US Airways jet made an extraordinary emergency landing in the Hudson River on Thursday, a flotilla of commuter ferries, water taxis and other boats plucked all 155 passengers and crew -- many shivering as they stood on the plane's wings -- to safety in as little as five minutes.

It was the charmed culmination to what could have been a tragic flight after the Airbus A320 lost power over New York and glided into the icy river. FOR THE RECORD: Plane's emergency landing: In Friday's Section A, an article about the US Airways jet that went down in New York's Hudson River misquoted witness Patrick Wilder as saying he "saw the splash." Wilder said he did not see the splash. The article also mischaracterized a 1982 Air Florida crash into a bridge over Washington's Potomac River, calling it the United States' "best-known attempt at a river landing." The jetliner hit the bridge during takeoff. — "I believe we've had a miracle on the Hudson," Gov. David Paterson said of the landing, executed by a veteran pilot who runs a safety consulting business on the side. US Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport en route to Charlotte, N.C., when federal officials said it might have flown through a large flock of Canada geese, sucking some into its engines.

As it dipped down near the George Washington Bridge and skimmed south along the edge of Upper Manhattan, scores of people watched in horror from nearby high-rises. "It completely just hit the water full-force, never bounced or anything like that, and came to a relatively quick stop," said Robin Roberts of "Good Morning America," who saw the plane's crash landing from her apartment window and described it for ABC News . "But it never -- it didn't skim along the water. There was very little trauma to the aircraft. . . . [I] still can't believe what I saw." Once in the water, not far from the mooring of a retired aircraft carrier, the Intrepid, the plane remained intact, enabling passengers to walk out onto its wings, from which most were rescued. Some had to plunge briefly into the river -- where the water was in the high 30s -- before they could be pulled to safety. The air temperature hovered around 20. "I've never seen anybody shake like that," said Cosmo Mezzina, a crew member on the Gov. Thomas H. Kean commuter ferry, recalling one young man he helped rescue. Mezzina said he took off his own coat and draped it over the shivering man.

One passenger was hospitalized with two broken legs, the Associated Press reported, but no other serious injuries were reported. Although passengers aboard every U.S. passenger flight are given routine instructions for what to do in an emergency water landing, such events are rare -- and rarely successful. The best-known attempt at a river landing in the United States was in January 1982, when an Air Florida jetliner slammed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River in Washington. Five of the 79 people on board survived. The pilot in Thursday's landing was Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III , a former fighter pilot from Danville, Calif., with more than 40 years of flying experience. He founded Safety Reliability Methods Inc. to apply advances in safety systems, some of them based on "studies of high-risk, high-performance environments such as aircraft carrier flight deck operations," its website says . New York Mayor Michael R.

Bloomberg said the pilot had done "a wonderful job." "It's not the way people normally arrive in New York City," added Bloomberg, "but as long as they all got out safely, everything else is secondary." Bloomberg said he had spoken to Sullenberger, who also spoke to investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board but made no public statements. Bloomberg said Sullenberger described walking up and down the plane to make sure all passengers had been evacuated before he abandoned it. Though the landing and subsequent rescue clearly relied on skill, they also had the advantage of luck. The landing occurred shortly before 3:30 p.m., just as ferries on both sides of the Hudson were "crewing up" for the afternoon rush hour. That allowed them to get to the plane almost instantly. At the same time, the river -- one of the world's busiest waterways, frequently plied by ferries, barges, tankers and cruise ships -- was apparently clear enough of shipping traffic to allow the plane to set down without hitting anything. The Airbus A320 left LaGuardia at 3:26 p.m. After takeoff, it banked left and headed west toward the Hudson.

Though the Federal Aviation Administration has cautioned that the cause of the accident remains under investigation, one theory that quickly emerged was that the plane had encountered a large flock of geese. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters told him it appeared that Canada geese, which migrate through the New York area, might have knocked out both engines. Rory Kay, an active airline pilot who is executive air safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Assn. International, said that what pilots called "bird ingestion" could cause at least partial engine failure. If birds are sucked into just one engine, Kay said, a pilot usually can make it to the nearest airfield or airport. "As long as you've got that remaining engine available to you, you hold quite a few aces up your sleeve," he said. "When both are taken away from you, you've got to make some rapid decisions." Kay said it's "quite rare, but certainly not unheard of," for birds to shut down two engines of a plane. "Both the aircraft and the engine are designed to take bird strikes," he said. "But if you just keep throwing a large flock of birds at that engine, there comes a breaking point.

And just a single goose could desperately damage an engine if it gets in. If you get more than one goose, you're certainly stacking the odds against yourself." It is not clear precisely when the plane lost engine power. However, from the airport, the US Airways plane flew across the Bronx, where Nick Reade, a freshman at Bronx High School of Science, was with a few friends when they heard a noise in the sky. "We looked up because we heard a big boom, and we saw a plane," he said. "It was not exactly spiraling but twirling a little bit. We saw a flame on the left engine, and it was making slightly weird noises. It was really low, and we saw it take a turn southwest." That was toward the river. Patrick Wilder, a 35-year-old social worker, was bicycling north along the Hudson River near 125th Street when he saw the plane pass over the George Washington Bridge. "I saw the plane on the Hudson and I knew it was trouble, because that's just not the normal route," he said. "All of a sudden it looked like it was pulling up slightly." He biked on, then turned around to see the plane go down.

"I saw the splash," he said. According to the FAA, the plane came down three minutes after takeoff. Passenger Jeff Kolodjay of Norwalk, Conn., told the AP that he heard a loud noise two or three minutes into the flight. He looked out of the left side of the plane and could see one of the engines on fire. "The captain said, 'Brace for impact because we're going down,' " Kolodjay said. He added, "It was intense. It was intense. You've got to give it to the pilot. He made a hell of a landing." Once the plane was down, the ferries and other boats immediately went into action. "Hurry up, guys! Man overboard!" shouted Vince Lombardi , the captain of the ferry Thomas Jefferson . Lombardi and his crew were among the first at the scene and rescued 56 people, he said. "They were shouting 'I'm cold, I'm cold.' " One woman was in a life raft with her baby and refused to hand the child to rescuers, Lombardi said. Crew member Wilfred Rivera said he kept shouting, "Hand me the baby!

Hand me the baby!" Eventually, the mother and child were rescued together, he said. Lombardi said he had struggled to "maintain the boat with the wind and the tide and the cold all working against us." Most passengers lined up on the wings, even as the wings began to submerge, and were able to step directly onto rescue craft, which included police and fire boats. Some, however, jumped into the water to get closer to the boats. Det. Michael Delaney, a New York Police Department diver, said he quickly got into the water in a wetsuit and spotted a woman floating near the plane. "I swam over to her and grabbed her," he said. "She was very frantic at the time. She said, 'Please don't let me go!' " Later, Delaney said, he went into the plane as it was sinking in 65-foot-deep water and searched it from front to back. By that time, he said, water was up to the level of headrests on the passenger seats. The plane was filling quickly, but no people remained. The plane was finally entirely submerged about an hour after landing. It was later re-floated and brought to a Manhattan dock.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly estimated that within five minutes of the plane hitting the water, all passengers had been taken aboard boats. Bloomberg, talking to reporters later, spoke highly of the numerous organizations, public and private, that had cooperated in the rescue. Poor coordination and communication between the New York police and fire departments had been a serious problem when terrorists flew jets into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Sept. 11 was not far from the minds of many New Yorkers who witnessed the emergency landing. Paterson seemed to refer to it at a news conference when he observed that the city had experienced many difficult days. "This," he said, "is a day to make us realize how blessed this city is." Plane crashes in Hudson river in New York | US news | The Guardian Hudson river plane crash Plane crashes in Hudson river in New York Passengers stand on the rescue chutes of a US Airways plane as a ferry pulls up to it after it landed in the Hudson river in New York.

Photograph: Gary Hershorn/Reuters Andrew Clark in New York, staff and agencies Thursday 15 January 2009 17.42 EST First published on Thursday 15 January 2009 17.42 EST Close This article is 8 years old A US Airways plane has crashed into the Hudson River in New York after apparently being hit by a bird. All of the 148 passengers, two pilots and three cabin staff on board the Airbus A320 aircraft survived, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). New York's Fire Department said 78 people were injured. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the US Airways Flight 1549 had just taken off from New York's LaGuardia airport enroute to Charlotte, North Carolina, when the crash occurred in the river near 48th Street in Manhattan. "The flight took off at 3.26 eastern time. We believe it was airborne for three minutes after take-off when it crashed into the Hudson River. The reports of bird strikes come from eyewitnesses on the ground," said Brown. A US government official said the plane had been involved in a bird strike that disabled both of the aircraft's engines.

It is not thought to be a terrorist-related crash. "There is no information at this time to indicate that this is a security-related incident," Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. "We continue to closely monitor the situation which at present is focused on search and rescue." Survivors waited patiently on the wings of the plane until they were picked up by the ferries and pleasurecraft scrambled to rescue them. Jeff Kolodjay, a passenger on the plane, told the Guardian that trouble began within minutes of take off from LaGuardia. "About three minutes into the flight, the left engine blew just in front of where I was sitting." He continued: "There was a lot of fire coming out and we dropped 100 feet or so very quickly." Kolodjay said the pilot warned passengers to prepare themselves for impact: "The pilot said, 'you guys have got to brace for impact.'" Kolodjay said the aircraft hit the water "pretty hard". Within minutes he said he was up to his knees in water while still inside the plane. "The water just flooded into the plane quickly. A couple of windows broke," said Kolodjay, 31, from Connecticut.

He said several passengers appeared to have been injured, although rescue craft were on the scene within minutes. "Kudos to the pilot, he did a hell of a job, he saved my life," said Kolodjay. Milling around on the West Side Highway eye witnesses described seeing passengers perched on the wings of the plane shortly after it hit the water. "I just thought, 'Why is it so low?' And, splash, it hit the water," said witness Barbara Sambriski, a researcher at Associated Press. The plane was submerged in the -6C waters up to the windows, and rescue crews had opened the door and were pulling passengers in yellow life vests from the plane. Several boats surrounded the plane, which appeared to be slowly sinking. "I saw what appeared to be a tail fin of a plane sticking out of the water," said Erica Schietinger, whose office windows at Chelsea Piers look out over the Hudson. A passenger told CNN: "I was standing on the left wing for a little while. I hope none of us ever have to experience it again. I think everyone got out of the plane.

I think everyone survived and that's miraculous." An eyewitness told the BBC: "It made a pretty big splash when it landed on the water. I just hope everybody's OK." Aviation expert James Ferguson said he had never seen anything like it. "If you hit water fairly hard, as you will do with an aircraft, it tends to break up. But this aircraft seems to be virtually undamaged," he said. Former BA pilot Eric Moody told Sky News the plane's pilot had performed a "textbook ditching". He said: "That very rarely happens, unless you are near a runway. Whoever has flown that has done a really good job." Air incident investigator David Gleave told the BBC the incident was "quite remarkable but not unique". He said that if both engines of the plane had failed, the aircraft would become like a "glider". He said: "It is quite controllable." Large numbers of passengers wearing yellow life jackets were seen being pulled from the water and taken on board ferries. Some, who had been standing on the plane's fuselage, were not even wet when they were rescued. • The US Airways information line can be contacted on 001 800 6798215.

US Airways Flight 1549 - The New York Times The New York Times Supported by US Airways Flight 1549 News about US Airways Flight 1549, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More Updated: June 9, 2009 On Jan. 15, 2009, a US Airways jetliner with 155 people aboard flew into a flock of geese and lost power in both engines shortly after taking off from La Guardia Airport on its way to Charlotte, N.C. The pilot, Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, splash-landed the plane in the icy Hudson River. Ferries and rescue boats swarmed toward the plane from both banks of the river, and all on board were brought to shore safely in a dramatic episode that made Mr. Sullenberger a national hero to many, and entered the rescue of Flight 1549 into airline lore.

Workers and others in high-rise buildings on both banks of the congested Hudson were transfixed as the A320 Airbus came downriver in mid-afternoon, its fuselage lower than many apartment terraces and windows, in a carefully executed touchdown that sent up huge plumes of water at midstream, between West 48th Street in Manhattan and Weehawken, N.J. What might have been a catastrophe was averted by a pilot's quick thinking and deft maneuvers, and by the nearness of rescue boats, a combination that witnesses and officials called miraculous. The aircraft struck the geese at 2,700 feet within 1 minute 37 seconds after takeoff. At that point, according to transcripts from the air traffic control of that flight, Captain Sullenberger told the tower that "we lost thrust in both engines." He determined quickly that he could not return quickly enough to La Guardia or make it to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey for a safe landing. "The only option remaining in the metropolitan area that was long enough, wide enough and smooth enough to land was the Hudson River," he said. He warned the passengers to brace for a hard landing.

Most had their heads down as the jetliner slammed into the water, nose slightly up, just three minutes after takeoff. The aircraft did not sink immediately. Instead, it floated, twisting and drifting south in strong currents, as three New York Waterway commuter ferries moved in. Moments later, terrified passengers began swarming out the emergency exits into cold January air and onto the submerged wings of the bobbing jetliner, which began taking in water. Soon, a small armada of police boats, fireboats, tugboats and Coast Guard craft converged on the scene, and some of them snubbed up to keep the jetliner afloat. Helicopters brought wet-suited police divers, who dropped into the water to help with the rescues. All of the passengers, including at least one baby, and both pilots and all three flight attendants, were transferred to the rescue boats, even as the crippled white-and-blue jetliner continued to drift south. When all were out, officials said, Captain Sullenberger walked up and down the aisle twice to make sure the plane was empty.

Question: Into which river did a US airliner crash land in January of this year (2009)?
Answer: HUDSON